The Chalk on the Dairy Door

Dear friend,

The riddle first, as the tradition demands. Back in the old town a farm dairy could not be used at all while its cistern stood open, which made a two day job into something the whole farm had to arrange rather than merely pay for.

Two plumbers in one town, the same sheet lead and the same solder.
Both were asked for a new lining to a farm dairy cistern, seven pounds ten for the two days.
Both were given a plain yes at the gate in the March, and both wrote the job in the book that evening.
One of them was still writing letters to that farm in the September with the lead uncut.
Same trade, same price, the same yes in the same month.
What did the other one get before he left the gate?

Hold your answer. Story time.

The Story

Two plumbers in the town I have never named. Both worked lead and little else: cisterns, pump barrels, the valley gutters of the better houses, sheet cast on a sanded bench and worked while it was warm enough to bend. Both would strip the perished lining out of a farm dairy cistern, lay new sheet and leather the pump, and both asked seven pounds ten for it.

The farms two and three miles out were the trade. A dairy cistern holds the water for scalding, and when the lining goes the water goes green and the butter suffers for it, which every farmer in the parish knew. Persuading anybody was never the difficulty. The difficulty was that while the cistern stands open the dairy is not a dairy, and a week of butter has to go somewhere.

The first plumber got his yes in the March, at a gate, from a farmer who meant it entirely. The cistern was bad, the price was fair, and the farmer said to send word when he was ready. He wrote in the May, and the hay was coming and the farmer would rather it was after. He wrote again in the July, and the dairymaid was away a fortnight at her mother's, which was a true difficulty, since a man can hardly ask a farm to shut its dairy in a week it is already short handed. He drove out in the August and had a pleasant half hour in the yard and came away with after harvest, which is a season and not a day. In the October a travelling man soldered a patch over the worst of the perish for nine shillings, and it held three years in that state. His book by then carried nine such yeses, and he had come to think of them as work in hand.

The second plumber, at another farm in another year, was given the same yes at the same sort of gate, and did not put his coat on. He said the dairy would be out of use for the Monday and most of the Tuesday, and asked which week in the year the farm could best stand it. The farmer leaned on the gate and worked at it out loud. Not the spring. Not the flush of the grass. The second week in October, when the cows were down to very little and the butter was light. He named it himself and said that week would do.

Then the plumber asked his one useful question. Who else on the farm has to know.

Three people, as it turned out. The dairymaid, because the cistern had to be drawn off and dried before he could touch it. The carter, because the Friday butter would be short that week and the shop in town had better hear it from him. And the farmer's wife, because she sold it. He asked the farmer to tell those three, and asked whether the week might be chalked on the dairy door, the churn weights being chalked there already with room underneath. The farmer chalked it that evening.

On the Monday morning in October the dairy was swept and dry, the cistern drawn off, there was a boy to carry, and the farmer was in the yard at eight to see him in. He was paid on the Tuesday and asked, standing there, about the gutters on the house.

Be fair to the first plumber. He wrote four civil letters, his price was right, his lead was good, and the farmer never told him an untruth. His whole error was that of all the people living on that farm, the only one who had arranged anything around the job was himself.

The Lesson, Since You've Earned It

A customer keeps the arrangement he made himself in front of other people, and forgets the one he made with you alone. Both plumbers had a yes. Only one had a date, and a date is not a stronger sort of yes. It is a different article, because other people's intentions are resting on it, and a yes has nothing resting on it but your hopes.

Three things are doing that work. The first is whose date it is. A week you propose is your plan, kindly agreed to, and a man may let your plan go without thinking any the worse of himself. A week he names out loud, after weighing the grass against the butter at his own gate, is his own judgement, and to drop it he must be a man who does not keep his own arrangements, which almost nobody is willing to be.

The second is who knows. Postponing is never free, but the price is paid in explanations rather than money. The first farmer owed one short apology to one man who would plainly forgive him, which is to say it cost him about a shilling. The second owed an explanation to a dairymaid who had made her week fit it, to a carter who had told the shop, and to his wife. You must not be the only creditor on your own date.

The third is what the telling does to him. A farmer who explains to his dairymaid why the dairy shuts on the Monday has argued the case in his own words, unprompted, and no man argues himself out of what he spent the afternoon arguing for. That is why a reason the customer speaks himself outlasts a reason you supply, applied to a day instead of a sum.

Money binds harder, which is why a sum paid over is worth more than any promise. But you cannot ask every customer for money at a gate, and the two do different work. A deposit stops him choosing against you. An arrangement other people know about stops the day drifting, which is what became of nine jobs in the first plumber's book, not one of which he lost to a rival.

You may object that a man whose word needs an audience has not really given you his word. The first farmer kept his word in every particular, mind: he never denied owing the job and never gave it to another man. The trouble was not his honesty but that on a working farm every week is wanted by something, and an unarranged week loses to an arranged one however sincere the man holding it. You are not extracting a promise. You are letting the thing gather enough weight to win a week against the hay.

Two cautions. Never name the other people as a lever, because a customer who feels pressed stops weighing your work and begins defending his right to decide. Ask who else has to know as the practical matter it is. And this holds the date, not the decision: a man who has not truly decided will take the asking for a corner he is being backed into, and will produce a reason, and you will have taught him to say no. Get the decision first, then ask about the week. When he does break the day, say nothing whatever about the three who knew.

Three questions, for the week in front of you:

1. Whose date is in my book? Mark each one his or mine. Where it is yours, you have an agreement and not an arrangement. Offer him two weeks, let him choose, and write it down in the words he chooses it in.
2. Who else in his world knows the day? Name them on paper for every job you are holding. Where the answer is nobody, that day is agreed and not arranged, and it will lose to the first thing that wants the same week.
3. What has he got to do before I arrive? One small task of his own, clear the room, empty the loft, be there at eight, is worth more than any reminder you could send. A customer who has done nothing has risked nothing.

The Answer to the Riddle

What did the other one get before he left the gate?

A week named out loud by the farmer himself, the names of the three people whose own week would have to bend around it, and his undertaking to go and tell them. The chalk on the dairy door was only where it was written down. What made the Monday happen was that four people were expecting it, and the plumber was merely one of them.

The first had a yes and nine months of civil letters. The second had a dry cistern, a boy to carry and an enquiry about the gutters. Neither was the better man at lead.

The verse:

A yes is yours, and yours alone,
and keeps no week at all;
a date three others have to keep
is chalked upon the wall.

Until next time. Go and take the three jobs sitting in your book on a yes and no date, ask each customer to name the week himself, and ask him which one other person needs telling.

P.S. Notice who the three people were. The dairymaid, the carter and the wife are the three on that farm most likely to be asked, within the twelvemonth, whether they know a man for lead work. A date arranged properly does not only get kept. It introduces you as the man they had to make room for rather than the man trying to get in.

Also in the archive: The Tuesday Nobody Paid For, The Man Who Kept the Key and No Hurry at All.